The latest edition of The CMO Survey from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business is out! The biannual survey, which this year was conducted across a sample of 2,630 marketing execs, surfaces trends in the budgets and priorities of chief marketing officers at top U.S. firms.

So what tectonic shifts are CMOs predicting? Here are 5 key takeaways that shed light on the status quo for marketers in the years to come.

1) Marketing budgets are expected to rebound to the highest point in over 3 years.

First and foremost, the survey results show that top marketing execs have lofty budgetary expectations for the years ahead. Over the next 12 months, CMOs expect marketing budgets to increase by 8.7%, the highest forecasted increase since August 2011.

The boldest budgetary boost is predicted by CMOs at B2C services companies. With a forecasted 13.4% budgetary growth, B2C services CMOS outpaced those of both B2B services (9.2%) and B2B product companies (9.1%).

2) CMOs expect their share of spending on marketing analytics to nearly double.

Over the next three years, CMOs expect their spending on marketing analytics — defined by director of The CMO Survey Christine Moorman as “the creation and use of quantitative data about customer behavior” — to increase by 83%, up from a 6.4% share of the overall marketing budget to 11.7%.

Alongside this growing investment in marketing analytics comes both an increase in digital marketing spending and a dip in investments in traditional advertising. According to the survey results, CMOs predict a 14.7% increase in digital marketing spend, but a 1.1% budgetary drop on traditional ad spend over the next 12 months.

3) Qualitative proof of the business impact of social media remains elusive to CMOs.

According to the survey, nearly half of all CMOs feel unable to prove the impact of social media on business objectives. In fact, only 13.2% of CMOs believe they have quantitatively proven the impact of social media.

The difficulty in proving the ROI of social media is illuminated in part by another result from the survey. On a 7-point scale (with 1 =Not Integrated and 7=Very Integrated), CMOs’ ranking of social media’s integration into their firms’ overall marketing strategies continues to hover below 4.

Still, beyond social media, ROI remains problematic across the board. Only 4 in 10 CMOs report the ability to prove the impact of short-term marketing spend on their business, and even fewer (34%) can qualitatively prove that impact in the long term.

4) Nevertheless, CMOs expect social media spending to skyrocket.

CMOs’ reported inability to track the ROI of social media isn’t holding them back from putting more money behind it. In the next five years, CMOs anticipate that social media spending will grow to dominate nearly a quarter (22.4%) of marketing budgets!

5) CMOs at B2B product companies report the greatest improvement in marketing ROI, customer retention, and brand value.

Interestingly, CMOs at B2B product and B2C services companies reported the greatest improvement in determining the ROI of their marketing efforts (3.2% and 3.1% respectively). CMOs at companies offering B2B services and B2C products lagged behind at 2.8% and 2.7%, respectively.

Overall, however, CMOs self-reported excellence continues to flatline. On a scale 7-point scale (1= Very Weak and 7=Leader), CMOs consistently consider their companies’ marketing excellence to fall below a 5.

For more insights from the February 2015 results, read the full survey results here. Or watch professor Christine Moorman discuss the results in the video below!

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